It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22 #Trump#Writing#josephheller#uspolitics#Politics
#WordWeavers 3/6: Who is your most creative character?
Define ‘creative’. Conventional associations with art, music, etc, seem too narrow to me. Consider the early pages of ‘Vows and Watersheds’, where Jerya and Hedric bond over the idea of measuring the distance to the moons; is that creative? Why not?
I don’t yet have a character in print who is seriously into art, but if you can hang around for Books 5 and 6… #books#writing#TheShatteredMoon
There are 3 books (Origins, Marathon, and Labyrinth, last is ongoing), links are pinned on my feed. First is a space road trip that runs into a conspiracy, second is sort of like the game "FTL: Faster Than Light", third is essentially a space dungeon crawl with cosmic horror elements.
As my books are free webnovels in a genre that is rare nowadays, I am desperate for publicity! Check them out if you like hard sci-fi!
#WritersCoffeeClub 3/6: Should books include a content warning?
I haven’t included content warnings in any of my books. I would do so if they included graphic violence or explicit sex, but I don’t tend to do that anyway. The question, of course, is where you draw the line. I do have same-sex (FF) intimacy, and if someone is offended by that, I feed that’s their problem. I’m not inclined to pander to prejudice. #books#writing#TheShatteredMoon
#WordWeavers 2406.04 — Antagonist POV: Is it easy for you to apologize? Can you apologize to someone right now?
If I made a mistake or bumped into somebody? Of course. Many people recognize me, or take a look at me, and something between awe and stupidity sets in. I account for that. I've survived the fall of civilizations; I can be charming. What I won't apologize is for doing things I must do, whether it simply upsets you or ends up killing people you knew, and all the permutations in between. My role in this miserable life that never ends is ensuring humanity survives. Nobody apologizes to me for saddling me with that responsibility. You know what really ticks me off? Questions like this one. Sorry!
Today, in my adventures in foolishly asking the internet general research questions:
The internet, shamelessly repeating the same factoid endlessly: throwing rice at weddings is an ancient tradition dating back to the Romans!
An anonymous old lady writing a cranky letter to the editor in 1895: this is a modern tradition that doesn't date back more than forty years and needs to stop before it takes a new bride’s eye out.
Meet the #Streusandbüchse (pounce pot), a plain artifact found on #earlymodern writing desks in Europe, next to the more famous ink pots and quills and papers. Filled with sand or pounce, it was mainly used to dry the ink after writing. The print featuring the item is from the 1680s.
"Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside." –Ursula K. Le Guin
I'm thrilled that 'The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: Volume 5' with poetry, haiku and a short story by me is out. You can purchase a copy of this e-book, with beautiful work by Cendrine Marrouat, Elena Anufriyeva, David Ellis, Azelle Elric, Deni Weeks and James Penha a.o. at bol.com and many other webshops where e-books are sold.
"Over the years, her friends wondered what ever happened to Antonietta. Was she safe? Was she being well-cared for? Was she even still alive?" —Maria Iqbal for Toronto Star
Yep. I love to use metaphors. Curiously, I use them more in the narration than in the actual dialogue. But some characters, like Laura, use them frequently. She likes to compare Our Hero to ridiculous things things, as in "This idiot's louder than an exploding orchestra", or "that dumbass eats more than a vegan castaway" =)
All my LI's are creative people. Some write poems. Kao wants to be an author and Ume is an author. In terms of creative material that appears in my novels Kao and Shiro are tied with several Hiaku appearing in the text. Plot wise Ume is the most creative. Konbini Idol is her telling the story of Fukitsu, Tomo, Kan-chan, and herself.
Currently, Ume is busy writing three ongoing stories, "Konbini Idol," "The Handmaiden's Tears," and ghostwriting "My Undersea Harem."
Apparently one of the most common uses of LLMs in #academia is copy editing: cleaning up your #writing on points of spelling, grammar and style. This is wildly unattractive to me. I love writing. My personal style, my personal voice, are extremely high priorities to me. It annoys me no end when a journal editor replaces one of my unconventional style choices with something bland. If an editor ran a paper of mine through an #LLM I would scream bloody murder.